Colin Russell

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Russell Crowe has been given the seal of approval for his directorial debut The Water Diviner after the drama landed the coveted Best Picture prize at the Australian version of the Oscars on Thursday (29Jan15). The Water Diviner took the top prize at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards, but shared the title with horror movie The Babadook.
After accepting the award via video link, Crowe wrote in a post on Twitter.com, "Oh Lordy!! (The Water Diviner) just won best film at the AACTA (Australian academy)..."
Crowe lost out on the Best Direction prize to The Babadook's Jennifer Kent and he was pipped to Best Lead Actor by Charlie's Country star David Gulpilil, but The Water Diviner clawed one back with Yilmaz Erdogan winning Best Supporting Actor.
The Babadook also took the Best Original Screenplay, Predestination's Sarah Snook was awarded Best Lead Actress, and Susan Prior landed Best Supporting Actress for The Rover.
Colin Firth's drama The Railway Man was named Best Adapted Screenplay and The Lego Movie won a visual effects prize.
Australian actress Rose Byrne was feted for her Hollywood career with the AACTA Trailblazer Award and received tributes from her Damages co-star Glenn Close and Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig.
In the TV categories, the winners included Aussie drama series The Code, which scooped four prizes, and comedy show Please Like Me, which landed two.
The trophies were handed out at a ceremony in Sydney, Australia.

Were you paying attention to the big screen and all the Hollywood happenings in 2014? We thought we'd kick off the New Year with a quick look back over the last 12 months of WENN movie news and pose a few questions to one and all that might just help you recall some magical moments at the cinema, or some hot gossip from the year just gone.
The prize for the winner? Bragging rights and a front row seat to the 2015 Oscars in your own living room! Best of luck!
1. The Fault in Our Stars was based on a book written by which author?
a. John Green
b. John White
c. James Green
d. James Brown
2. What song did not feature on the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy?
a. I'm Not in Love
b. Mama Told Me Not to Come
c. Spirit in the Sky
d. Hooked on a Feeling
3. From which hit animated movie did the catchy tune Everything is Awesome come?
a. Muppets Most Wanted
b. The Lego Movie
c. How to Train Your Dragon 2
d. Mr Peabody and Sherman
4. Game of Thrones star Kit Harington starred in which epic disaster film based on true events?
a. Godzilla
b. 300: Rise of an Empire
c. Hercules
d. Pompeii
5. The son of which longtime Hollywood couple starred alongside Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill in 22 Jump Street?
a. Colin Hanks, son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson
b. Oliver Hudson, son of Bill Hudson and Goldie Hawn
c. Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
d. Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn
6. Which of the following was not a cast member in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes?
a. Andy Serkis
b. James Franco
c. Jason Clarke
d. Gary Oldman
7. Get On Up was a biopic based on the life of which legendary musician?
a. James Brown
b. Stevie Wonder
c. George Clinton
d. Smokey Robinson
8. Which Hollywood veteran portrayed the family matriarch in This Is Where I Leave You?
a. Anjelica Huston
b. Jane Fonda
c. Bette Midler
d. Dame Judi Dench
9. Which musical did The Amazing Spider-Man star Emma Stone make her Broadway debut in?
a. Chicago
b. Cabaret
c. Wicked
d. Les Miserables
10. Which one of these celebrities was NOT part of Ellen DeGeneres' famous 'selfie' taken during the 2014 Academy Awards?
a. Channing Tatum
b. Kevin Spacey
c. Matthew McConaughey
d. Jared Leto
11. Which actress celebrated her one-year wedding anniversary to her tennis pro husband on New Year's Eve?
a. Ashley Tisdale
b. Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting
c. Naya Rivera
d. Ginnifer Goodwin
12. Who will play the villain in the next James Bond movie?
a. Quentin Tarantino
b. Mark Strong
c. Christoph Waltz
d. Bryan Cranston
13. Which country do the two actors who played Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma come from?
a. England
b. France
c. Canada
d. America
14. Who rang in 2014 with Charlize Theron and has since become her boyfriend?
a. Sean Penn
b. Chris Pratt
c. Mark Wahlberg
d. Joaquin Phoenix
15. Name new mum Scarlett Johansson's daughter.
a. Kate
b. Jane
c. Apple
d. Rose
16. Which famous Jessica played Matthew McConaughey's grown-up daughter in Interstellar?
a. Jessica Alba
b. Jessica Biel
c. Jessica Chastain
d. Jessica Lange
17. Which Brit picked up the Best Actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May for his portrayal of grumpy artist J.W. Turner?
a. Colin Firth
b. Timothy Spall
c. Ray Winstone
d. Alan Rickman
18. What was the highest grossing movie of 2014?
a. Transformers: Age of Extinction
b. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
c. Guardians of the Galaxy
d. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
19. Which awards season favourite was filmed over 12 years?
a. Boyhood
b. Birdman
c. Foxcatcher
d. Selma
20. In what film did Jennifer Lawrence debut her singing voice, scoring a chart hit all around the world?
a. Silver Linings Playbook
b. American Hustle
c. X-Men: Days of Future Past
d. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
21. What is the bestselling music soundtrack on iTunes this year?
a. Frozen
b. Annie
c. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
d. Guardians of the Galaxy
22. He ended 2014 a newlywed with a hit movie, called The Theory of Everything. Name the British actor who married fiancee Hannah Bagshawe in England on 15 December.
a. Benedict Cumberbatch
b. Timothy Spall
c. Eddie Redmayne
d. Colin Firth
23. Why did model-turned-actress Milla Jovovich announce she was putting the next film in her Resident Evil franchise on hold in August?
a. Script problems
b. Financial issues
c. Her director husband Paul W.S. Anderson had abandoned the movie
d. She was pregnant
24. In 2014, this actor played Moses and became a new dad. Name him.
a. Joel Edgerton
b. Chris Pratt
c. Christian Bale
d. Mark Wahlberg
25. Another new dad, Chris Hemsworth, was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in 2014, but who's the lucky actress, the mother of his kids, who gets to cuddle up to him every night?
a. Eva Mendes
b. Elsa Pataky
c. Scarlett Johansson
d. Jessica Alba
ANSWERS:
1. a
2. b
3. b
4. d
5. d
6. b
7. a
8. b
9. b
10. c
11. b
12. c
13. a
14. a
15. d
16. c
17. b
18. a
19. a
20. d
21. a
22. c
23. d
24. c
25. b

Russell Crowe's directorial debut The Water Diviner looks set to dominate the upcoming Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards after scoring eight nominations.
The World War II drama, which marks Crowe's first stint behind the camera, landed him both a Best Film nomination and a nod for Best Lead Actor at the AACTA awards, Australia's version of the Oscars.
The movie also scored nods in the categories for Best Supporting Actor (Yilmaz Erdogan), Best Supporting Actress (Jacqueline McKenzie) and Best Original Screenplay, as well as mentions for editing, production and costume design.
Ethan Hawke's sci-fi thriller Predestination also looks set to be a big winner with nine nominations, going up against The Water Diviner in categories including Best Film, while another major contender is The Rover, with seven nods.
Guy Pearce is to compete with Crowe for the Best Lead Actor trophy for his role in the dystopian drama, while his co-star Robert Pattinson leads the Best Supporting Actor category.
Other nominees in the Best Film category along with The Water Diviner and Predestination include horror movie The Babadook, The Railway Man, starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, Charlie's Country, and Mia Wasikowska's Tracks. INXS drama INXS - Never Tear Us Apart scored multiple nominations in the TV categories including a Best Lead Actor In A Television Drama nod for Luke Arnold for his role as tragic singer Michael Hutchence.
The awards will be handed out at a ceremony in Sydney, Australia on 29 January (15).

Actor Mark Strong has dismissed reports suggesting he will be playing the villain in the next James Bond movie, insisting a hiking vacation he took with old pal Daniel Craig was behind the latest casting rumours. The two Brits set off to walk across the Atlas Mountains in Africa recently and when a photograph of the friends hit the Internet, 007 casting speculation quickly followed.
Strong tells WENN, "Daniel is a very good friend of mine. We've known each other for years and he's a godfather to my eldest child. The reason these rumours came about is because recently we went on a walking tour together in the Atlas Mountains. We took some time off to have some friend time; we hadn't seen each other for ages. Busy schedules mean you can't see each other and don't see your mates for a long time. And we went walking together.
"Someone took a picture and everybody's come to the conclusion I must be the new bad guy in the new Bond movie!"
Strong admits he'd love to be considered for the role because Bond villains are almost as iconic as the superspy, but he feels he might be better suited to playing one of 007's sidekicks after transitioning from playing bad guys to spies on the big screen.
The Kick-Ass 2 star explains, "For some reason I played bad guys for a while, for a few years. I don't quite know what's happened but now it's spies!
"I was a spy in Body of Lies, a film I did with Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio; he was the head of the Jordanian secret service. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I was a spy. In The Imitation Game, that's coming out with Benedict Cumberbatch, I'm a spy. Secret Service that I'm doing with Michael Caine, Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Firth, I'm another spy. I mean, it's unbelievable. I don't know quite what's happening but there's a whole spy thing going on."

Universal Pictures via Everett Collection
There are some actors that we love to hear sing. In fact, we've compiled a list of a few performers' voices that we can't get enough of. Then there are others that really just shouldn't be given the opportunity to sing on screen. Some of them are truly terrible and some others are just misguided, but here's our look at the worst singing performances in movies.
Pierce Brosnan, Mamma Mia!
There's a reason that they used to dub actors' singing voices in musicals (Hello, Marnie Nixon!), and Brosnan is the poster child for revisiting the practice. He looks terrific in the Mediterranean locales and linen suits of Mamma Mia!, but his singing is bad enough that it almost deserves its own separate category.
Russell Crowe, Les Miserables
It's hard to know exactly what the producers were thinking when they cast Crowe in Les Miz, beyond just that he sort of looks right for the role of Inspector Javert. He certainly doesn’t sound right. Most of the rest of the cast can legitimately sing, so tossing the Gladiator star into the mix was all the more jarring.
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
There are actually worse vocal performances in Tim Burton's film about the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street"… Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter to name two. The issue with Depp's singing is that he can't seem to figure out what to do with his accent. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not, and sometimes it morphs into a little bit of Keith Richards/Jack Sparrow.
Alec Baldwin, Rock of Ages, or...
...Tom Cruise, Rock of Ages
We tried to pick which was worse… Baldwin singing "I Can't Fight This Feeling" with Russell Brand or Cruise singing "I Want to Know What Love Is" with Malin Akerman. There was no consensus since they're both about as bad as anything you'll ever see in a movie musical. Feel free to watch them and see if you can decide... if you can make it all the way through either one.
Drew Barrymore, Music and Lyrics
We love Barrymore, really we do. She's adorable and sweet and we like having her around. It's just that her voice is a little too thin for her to be singing on camera. We thought so in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You and we thought the same thing in her rom-com with Hugh Grant.
Michael Caine, The Muppet Christmas Carol
Okay, so it's a Muppets movie, we get it. Kermit and Miss Piggy aren't the best singers either. But both Tina Fey and Amy Adams have proven that just because you're surrounded by felt doesn't mean that you have to sing poorly. In the grand tradition of British stage actors, Caine just kind of talks his way through his singing parts. Not all traditions are good.
Cameron Diaz, My Best Friend's Wedding
Yes, the script called for her to be intentionally bad… and, by that standard, this is a dynamite performance. You know that you're in a rom-com when the crowd at a karaoke place starts going nuts for someone butchering a Dusty Springfield song.
Edward Norton, Everyone Says I Love You
This is kind of a shame, because it's clear that Norton really enjoys singing. He tosses himself into the musical performance with gusto, treating it like it's the prison cell scene from Primal Fear… which is what makes him such a good actor. It just doesn't make him a good singer. Based on Keeping the Faith and his Motorola commercial, however, it does seem like he'd be more fun at a karaoke bar than Diaz.
Adam Sandler, The Wedding Singer
Here's the mistake that a lot of people make… just because Sandler sings a lot doesn't mean that he's a good singer. We admire the fact that he likes to do it and we laughed at "The Turkey Song" and "The Hanukkah Song" on Saturday Night Live, same as everyone else… but there are limits to how much of Sandler's man-child voice that we can take. He is, however, welcome to continue serenading Barrymore once every 10 years as he did recently on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Sometimes even bad singing is sweet.
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DreamWorks
For the bulk of every Rocky and Bullwinkle episode, moose and squirrel would engage in high concept escapades that satirized geopolitics, contemporary cinema, and the very fabrics of the human condition. With all of that to work with, there's no excuse for why the pair and their Soviet nemeses haven't gotten a decent movie adaptation. But the ingenious Mr. Peabody and his faithful boy Sherman are another story, intercut between Rocky and Bullwinkle segments to teach kids brief history lessons and toss in a nearly lethal dose of puns. Their stories and relationship were much simpler, which means that bringing their shtick to the big screen would entail a lot more invention — always risky when you're dealing with precious material.
For the most part, Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman handles the regeneration of its heroes aptly, allowing for emotionally substance in their unique father-son relationship and all the difficulties inherent therein. The story is no subtle metaphor for the difficulties surrounding gay adoption, with society decreeing that a dog, no matter how hyper-intelligent, cannot be a suitable father. The central plot has Peabody hosting a party for a disapproving child services agent and the parents of a young girl with whom 7-year-old Sherman had a schoolyard spat, all in order to prove himself a suitable dad. Of course, the WABAC comes into play when the tots take it for a spin, forcing Peabody to rush to their rescue.
Getting down to personals, we also see the left brain-heavy Peabody struggle with being father Sherman deserves. The bulk of the emotional marks are hit as we learn just how much Peabody cares for Sherman, and just how hard it has been to accept that his only family is growing up and changing.
DreamWorks
But more successful than the new is the film's handling of the old — the material that Peabody and Sherman purists will adore. They travel back in time via the WABAC Machine to Ancient Egypt, the Renaissance, and the Trojan War, and 18th Century France, explaining the cultural backdrop and historical significance of the settings and characters they happen upon, all with that irreverent (but no longer racist) flare that the old cartoons enjoyed. And oh... the puns.
Mr. Peabody &amp; Sherman is a f**king treasure trove of some of the most amazingly bad puns in recent cinema. This effort alone will leave you in awe.
The film does unravel in its final act, bringing the science-fiction of time travel a little too close to the forefront and dropping the ball on a good deal of its emotional groundwork. What seemed to be substantial building blocks do not pay off in the way we might, as scholars of animated family cinema, have anticipated, leaving the movie with an unfinished feeling.
But all in all, it's a bright, compassionate, reasonably educational, and occasionally funny if not altogether worthy tribute to an old favorite. And since we don't have our own WABAC machine to return to a time of regularly scheduled Peabody and Sherman cartoons, this will do okay for now.
If nothing else, it's worth your time for the puns.
3/5
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"I had to pinch myself during my scenes with Colin and Russell Crowe. I said, 'This can't be really happening!' Acting is like a game of tennis: If you're working with someone brilliant, you have to up the stakes, and I love that challenge." Former Downton Abbey actress Jessica Brown Findlay was starstruck working with Colin Farrell and Russell Crowe in new movie Winter's Tale.

Warner Bros Pictures via Everett Collection
Even without having read Mark Helprin's novel Winter's Tale, I have the unshakable feeling that Akiva Goldsman's film adaptation does not do the story justice. Speckled throughout the moreover colorless movie are hints of an intriguing idea — a fantasy epic about an angel-demon bureaucracy coexisting with the human race throughout the span of 20th century New York City, operating within the parameters of a didactic miracle-granting system — an idea that doesn't come close to its full potential. In 118 minutes, we barely scratch the surface of the world in which an apparently immortal Colin Farrell finds himself. We see him cavort with Russell Crowe, a malicious gang-leader with netherworld origins, seek guidance from a mystical Pegasus, and carry out his destiny as the savior to a mysterious red-haired girl. But we never truly understand why any of this is happening. Not that it gets particularly confusing; on a plot level, it's all quite simple. But that's the problem — it shouldn't be.
The central conceit of the film is that everyone is put on this Earth with a divine "mission" to uphold. Farrell's gives us the narrative of Winter's Tale, introducing the various rules and officers of the supernatural regime along the way. Abandoned as a baby and brought up under the criminal regime of a Manhattanite from Hell (Crowe), Farrell ascends from orphan to petty thief to horse whispering renegade to whimsical lover of a dying Jessica Brown Findlay to ageless messiah... all without much clarity on the nature of the story (or stories) he's occupying, save for two ham-fisted scenes of exposition — one with Graham Greene (not the dead author) and one with Jennifer Connelly, who shows up halfway through the movie for some reason.
Warner Bros Pictures via Everett Collection
The world that Farrell is woven into has so many bright spots: we're on board for miracle quests, a magic-laden New York City, flying horses, and one of the biggest stars in Hollywood giving a cameo as the epitome of evil. Everything we see is fun, but it all flutters away as quickly as it arrives. We don't want quick bites of the way angels and demons do business with one another on the streets of Manhattan, we want the whole meal. A more thorough exploration of Helprin's world wouldn't just be doubly as interesting as the thin alternative we're offered in Goldsman's adaptation, it'd also fill in all the comprehensive gaps in Farrell's emotional throughline
We don't really understand so much of what happens to Farrell. Even when we're offered tangible explanations, we have no reason to understand why the Winter's Tale world works in such a way that Farrell might survive a 300-foot fall, develop amnesia, or sustain youth for a full century. What's more, we don't understand why Farrell's tale as a cog in this mystical machine is any more important than anyone else's. Or, if it's not, and we're simply asked to watch him carry out his quest as a glimpse into the vast, enigmatic system that Winter's Tale is ostensibly founded upon, we ... we don't understand enough of that world itself.
Warner Bros Pictures via Everett Collection
We're never invited close enough to any of the movie's attractive features for them to matter. So even when the movie does offer entertaining bits — in its fantastical elements, its detail of New Yorks old and new, or Farrell's admittedly charming romance with Findlay — we're not engaged enough to really connect with any of them.
Still, the flying horse is pretty cool.
2.5/5
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Tribeca Film via Everett Collection
For a film that involves a love triangle, mental illness, a Bohemian colony of free-spirits, an impending war and several important historical figures, the most exciting elements of Summer in February are the stunning shots of the English country and Cornish seaside. The rest of the film never quite lives up to the crashing waves and sun-dappled meadows that are used to bookend the scenes, as the entertaining opening never manages to coalesce into a story that lives up the the cinematography, let alone the lives of the people that inspired it.
Set in an Edwardian artist’s colony in Cornwall, Summer in February tells the story of A.J. Munnings (Dominic Cooper), who went on to become one of the most famous painters of his day and head of the Royal Academy of Art, his best friend, estate agent and part-time soldier Gilbert Evans (Dan Stevens), and the woman whom they both loved, aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood (Emily Browning). Her marriage to Munnings was an extremely unhappy one, and she attempted suicide on their honeymoon, before killing herself in 1914. According to his journals, Gilbert and Florence were madly in love, although her marriage and his service in the army kept them apart.
When the film begins, Munnings is the center of attention in the Lamorna Artist's Colony, dramatically reciting poetry at parties and charming his way out of his bar tab while everyone around him proclaims him to be a genius. When he’s not drinking or painting, he’s riding horses with Gilbert, who has the relatively thankless task of keeping this group of Bohemians in line. Their idyllic existence is disrupted by the arrival of Florence, who has run away from her overbearing father and the fiancé he had picked out for her in order to become a painter.
Stevens and Browning both start the film solidly, with enough chemistry between them to make their infatuation interesting. He manages to give Gilbert enough dependable charm to win over both Florence and the audience, and she presents Florence as someone with enough spunk and self-possession to go after what she wants. Browning’s scenes with Munnings are equally entertaining in the first third of the film, as she can clearly see straight through all of his bravado and he is intrigued by her and how difficult she is to impress. Unfortunately, while the basis of the love triangle is well-established and entertaining, it takes a sudden turn into nothing with a surprise proposal from Munnings.
Neither the film nor Browning ever make it clear why Florence accepts his proposal, especially when they have both taken great pains to establish that she doesn’t care much for him. But once she does, the films stalls, and both Stevens and Browning spend the rest of the film doing little more than staring moodily and longingly at the people around them. The real-life Florence was plagued by depression and mental instability, but neither the film nor Browning’s performance ever manage to do more than give the subtlest hint at that darkness. On a few occasions, Browning does manage to portray a genuine anguish, but rather than producing any sympathy from the audience, it simply conjures up images of a different film, one that focused more on Florence, and the difficulties of being a woman with a mental illness at a time when both were ignored or misunderstood.
Stevens is fine, and Gilbert starts out with the same kind of good-guy appeal the won the heart of Mary Crawley and Downton Abbey fans the world over. However, once the film stalls, so does his performance, and he quickly drops everything that made the character attractive or interesting in favor of longing looks and long stretches of inactivity. He does portray a convincing amount of adoration for Florence, although that's about the only real emotion that Gilbert expresses for the vast majority of the film, and even during his love scene, he never manages to give him any amount of passion.
Cooper does his best with what he’s given, and tries his hardest to imbue the film with some substance and drama. His Munnings is by turns charming, brash, and brooding, the kind of person who has been told all of their life that they are special, and believes it. He even manages to give the character some depth, and even though he and Browning have very little chemistry, he manages to convey a genuine affection for her. It’s a shame that Munnings becomes such a deeply unlikable character, because Cooper is the only thing giving Summer in February a jolt of life – even if it comes via bursts of thinly-explained hostility. It's hard to watch just how hard he's working to connect with his co-stars and add some excitement to a lifeless script and not wish that he had a better film to show off his talents in.
Unfortunately, by the time Florence and Gilbert are finally spurred into activity, the film has dragged on for so long that you’re no longer invested in the characters, their pain, or their love story, even if you want to be. Which is the real disappointment of Summer in February; underneath the stalled plot and the relatively one-note acting, there are glimmers of a fascinating and compelling story that’s never allowed to come to the forefront.
2/5
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